


The Sunbeam Flaring in Your Body

by bloodofpyke



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-09
Updated: 2012-11-09
Packaged: 2017-11-18 07:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/558414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodofpyke/pseuds/bloodofpyke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They fit together, he and Niall, and he thinks he likes that best of all, the quiet moments they sneak and stack up stretched out on cold hotel beds, Niall's fingers wrapped round his wrist.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sunbeam Flaring in Your Body

He wonders, sometimes, if his heart isn’t too small for his ribs; when he lies awake at night, sprawled out on top of his covers, trying to catch the moonlight in his grasp, he thinks he can hear it knocking about between his bones. And it’s hollow, and it’s empty, and he tries to imagine what it must look like, that tiny bit of himself locked up beneath bones, tries to imagine if one day it’ll fit snugly into where it’s supposed to.

(He doesn’t think it will, but then that’s who he is, and he’s used to it. He forgets the moonlight, rolls over, falls asleep. This has become routine for him.)

He’s still not used to this, the way the world feels under his feet, the way he feels all he has to do is bend and he could sweep it all up in his palm. He’s even less used to the family he was tossed into; it’s unsettling, in a way, and a part of him thinks that if he stretches too much, he could tear the fabric of it and he’d be left sitting alone on the stage, trying to grasp what was already slipping through his fingers (he’s always had pointy elbows).

And it’s a tug, somewhere near his chest he thinks, or maybe it’s more like having extra limbs he can’t quite see because they’re a part of him now, these boys standing atop the world with to him, these strangers who’ve become brothers. He closes his eyes sometimes, and he can feel them like they’re humming beneath his skin, and it’s strange, how it can be blurred and sharp at the same time, but he doesn’t mind. He likes this feeling, he thinks, likes the brightness of Liam’s grin, the mussed lines of Harry, the clash and scramble of Louis. It’s Niall he can’t quite figure out, and he thinks he likes that too, this mystery of the boy whose tug is the strongest, who shines so brightly he has squint and shield his eyes.

+

It happens slowly; he blinks once, and suddenly Niall is there, lodged in his heart, and it feels a bit bigger now, like maybe it’s sort of growing into his ribs after all. He wonders if he’ll ever get used to this--the fame, partly, but also the way his heart kind of stutters when Niall brushes up against him, and how he examines the skin later, looking for a scorch mark, maybe, or a burn, some evidence that Niall was there--and he thinks that he won’t, that this isn’t something you get used to, but rather something you stretch into, something you fold over until it fits. He’s okay with that.

+

They fit together, he and Niall, and he thinks he likes that best of all, the quiet moments they sneak and stack up stretched out on cold hotel beds, Niall’s fingers wrapped round his wrist. He can hear Niall’s heart beating, can feel it like a blossoming, a new tattoo on his skin, and he tries to memorize it, tries to keep it with him, tries to turn it into something tangible. He can hear his heart beating too, underneath Niall’s, but it’s muted and soft and he sort of feels like someone’s lit a candle in the empty space around his heart. He wonders if Niall knows every jump and skip of his heart, wonders if he can feel the slow burn in his chest (he wonders too if Niall knows it’s because of him; sometimes Zayn half thinks Niall’s a bit like the sun, and he sprawls out in the warmth of him, eyes closed and a finger pressed to Niall’s pulse, measuring him beat for beat, like the sun is something that can be kept, held).

+

It becomes a joke, how he can fall asleep anywhere, and it’s  _true_ , but he’s got this, this  _thing_  about hotel rooms sometimes. He isn’t quite sure what it is--maybe it’s got something to do with the way all hotel rooms start to blur together when you’ve been in enough, or the way it feels as though you’ve got one foot in someone else’s life because surely this can’t be real, all this moving and jumping and leaping?--but it gets to him every couple of cities. And the thing is, he  _likes_  the hotel rooms usually, likes the bit of quiet he can carve out for himself in between the hallway sword fights and late night room service binges that always end in Liam putting on some crap movie and Louis jumping on the bed until he feels like he’ll be sick. And he thinks it has something to do with Harry, because he’s always going on about how the rooms are too big, too cold, too  _empty_   _(yeah, mate, they’re supposed to be_ , he almost wanted to say back, but didn’t, because Harry was slouched against him and it hit Zayn then, how  _young_  this kid was; because he thinks he understands, about the hotel rooms). 

They’re in a city that Zayn’s already forgotten the name of--he only caught something about a local burger place that was off the charts before Niall clambered over him and demanded they stop there before he starved to death--when it catches up to him, all the hotel rooms. And he’s standing in the middle of his room--his too big, too cold, too empty room--stuck between just trying to grab an hour or two of sleep or going to find the other boys or going for a smoke or something, anything that’s not in his room. The door opens then, and it’s Niall, clutching a burger in one hand and sucking down a milkshake (because of course they’d made the stop; Harry had joined in and Zayn learned ages ago that there isn’t anyone able to defeat those two). “Was looking for you,” Niall says around his straw.

Zayn shrugs, swallows a smile. “Didn’t go anywhere,” he says.

“You’re always sneaking off,” Niall says, and if his hands weren’t full, Zayn thinks that he might be wagging a finger at him. He can’t contain it then, and the smile bursts and then he’s laughing, and he already feels loads lighter. “What?” Niall asks, because if there’s a joke, he always wants to know about it, never wants to be denied a laugh.

“Nothing,” Zayn says, straightening up, “just--just missed you, is all.”

“It’s not even been an hour!” Niall says, gesturing widely and scattering a few french fries, but he’s pleased, Zayn can tell by the way he’s moving, like it’s too much suddenly, and he feels he could burst (Zayn’s familiar with the feeling, but he says nothing, only grins and shrugs, falls back onto the bed).

“It’s freezing in here, y’know,” Niall tells him, crawling onto the bed next to him, curling up under his arm, leaving a trail of bits of tomatoes and lettuce across the bed.

“It’s not that cold,” he answers, thinking about how it’s always Niall that shivers the hardest when he leaves a window open, wonders if he should get up to grab that extra blanket on the chair.

“Gonna snow,” Niall mumbles, tossing his empty wrapper onto the ground, shifting closer until their knees knock and it feels like their ribs are bruised against each other.

“You’ll be fine,” he says, half into Niall’s hair, but the words are fading before they’re even really said, because Niall’s tracing his yin-yang tattoo like he’d never seen it before and that feeling, that skin-on-skin contact is making something in Zayn’s chest contract like he’s about to collapse in on himself.

“Did it hurt,” he asks, and for half a beat Zayn thought he was going to follow it with  _when you fell from heaven?_ , but he doesn’t, only finished with, “getting a tattoo?”

“Nah, you get used to it, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Niall says. “Yeah. I think I’d like to get one maybe, some day.” 

Zayn tries to imagine Niall with a tattoo and can’t; it’s just not  _him._  “Of what?” he asks. “A leprechaun drinking a pint?”

“Hey!” Niall exclaims, bumping his shoulder into Zayn’s, trying to swipe at him but they’re too close and they only end up more tangled together. “I just,” he says a few moments later, and it’s slow and quiet, because this is how Niall is sometimes when they’re alone; muted, but still bright, still lit up, bit like the sky right before the sun rises, when all you can do is watch and feel your heart skip at the colors. “I just think it’d be nice, y’know, to get something important like that, and get to keep it forever.”

“Yeah,” Zayn says, heart going mad at the way Niall’s fingers are back to tracing his tattoo. “Be a bit weird though, to see a tattoo on you, press’d go nuts.” 

“‘Irish Boybander Gets Inked Up!’” Niall says, and Zayn can hear the capitol letters in his voice, and then Niall’s laughing, his head caught under the sleeve of Zayn’s tshirt, and it’s like the sun’s already come up, so Zayn just tips his head back and laughs with him, thinking of what Niall said, about getting to keep something important, wondering if this is what it feels like, getting to keep Niall. 


End file.
